First installation: some questions

[legolas119]

perfect, thank you, it's clear. I tried to import a couple of games for Final Burn Pro/Delta, with these default settings (and also i tried to uncheck the last option):

and it seems that is ok. I will try to import additional games for Final Burn in order to verify if everything is ok. I decided to uncheck the last option: i want the subcategories only when i will import MAME fullset. 

I follow your steps: is it normal that FInal Burn Alpha isn't under the ARCADE Platform section?

thanks

 

Edited April 20, 2020 by legolas119

[CDBlue]

Yes, when you add a platform it doesn't know what category it might belong to, even if you told it to scrape as arcade.  To associate it under the Arcade platform, right click on the Final Burn Alpha name in the list on the left panel and select edit.  Then on the windows that pops up, select the parents tab.  On that page, deselect root as the parent, and select the Arcade category instead.  It should then be listed under Arcade.

[legolas119]

perfect! thanks! I'm trying to add different games from different system included in Final Burn.  It's quite strange: it seems for example that it isn't able to import "colecovision" games. I choosed 2 of them:

 

but LB can't detect them, even if i tried to uncheck every option:

as you can see, it will import only 2 games, not from colecovision:

Do you know the reason?

 

thank you

 

P.S.: i found the way how to import Taito Type X games!

[CDBlue]

Hmm not sure.  I've never used non-arcade software roms with Mame or Final Burn Alpha.  I would rather use their proper emulators and import them via their own romsets rather than the arcade software roms your looking for.  My guess though is that it's just a coincidence that those two roms are importing, as those might be named the same as the arcade counterparts (ie. the rom it thinks is 1943kai.zip that it thinks it's importing is the arcade rom, not the pce verison.  If it works then great, but my guess is that since you're telling it that these are arcade/mame games, but those aren't really arcade games, but are named the same as their arcade counter-parts. Not sure if I explained what I think is going on well or not, lol.  Hopefully you get where I think the issue is happening.

For non-arcade/software roms like PCE, MSX, Coleco, if you want to use those with Final Burn (or Mame) you might need to ask in a specific post how to import those.  I would assume you need to setup a separate emulator, pointing for FInal Burn still, but passing on a command line to tell it that you want it to play celecovision games for example, and then you actually import the games as colecovision, not mame... but again not sure.

[neil9000]

1 hour ago, legolas119 said:

perfect! thanks! I'm trying to add different games from different system included in Final Burn.  It's quite strange: it seems for example that it isn't able to import "colecovision" games. I choosed 2 of them:

 

but LB can't detect them, even if i tried to uncheck every option:

as you can see, it will import only 2 games, not from colecovision:

Do you know the reason?

 

thank you

 

P.S.: i found the way how to import Taito Type X games!

Software lists for MAME are not officially supported by Launchbox. Plus you are trying to import games for three different systems under one emulator. You need to import different systems under there own system name. Also i wouldnt use those roms or MAME for any of those systems. Like @CDBlue said, get correct romsets for that stuff. 

[legolas119]

undestood. I will import the console romset with their own emulator and I will import with Final Burn only the arcade romset

During the import process, If I choose the 1st option, it means that if LB detect the same rom with different region (USA, JAP, Asia, World and so on) it will import only the Noth american version: if it doesn't find it, it will import the following region in the list, am I right? If so, it is sure that I will import every game only one time, correct?  Of course, this is valid also during the MAME fullset import.

 

thanks!

[CDBlue]

if you choose to select all roms, it will import all the regions and just combine the games together in LaunchBox/Big Box.  For example, the game 1942 might have a North America, Japan and Europe versions (or even different releases in each market... example ver1 in US, ver2 in US, etc.), .  So, if you select to import all roms, clones, etc.  It will import all these and combine them.  I believe, depending on what region you have selected/listed first in your region preferences in LB, it should make that one the default rom to run when you double-click/launch the game.  So, if you want to play the Japan, Europe, different versions/clones of that game, you simply right-click the game in LB and pick the version you want to try and run in the list.  Example below for my 1942 game where I did import a full Final Burn Neo romset and told it to just import all roms/clones.

 

All those Play... options listed are different versions of the game that were imported and can be played if desired.

Edited April 22, 2020 by CDBlue

[legolas119]

thanks! I'm importing all the arcade romset for FBA   For MAME I will use of course its specific option "Import MAME fullset".

I still have to import a couple of MAME Hack, in particular CNP MAME PLUS and PGM2 MAME: for these emulator is it better to use the "import MAME fullset" mode or the same way I used for FBA?

Another question: if I use Steam without LB, it works in fullscreen. But if I launch it with LB, it ins't...do you know how i can set full screen also in LB?

thank you!

[CDBlue]

Sorry, once again Steam is not a platform I emulate via LB.  I'd rather launch my steam games via the steam app directly.  Also, just a heads up on Mame.  Only use the Import Mame Fullset option in LB if you do indeed have a complete full rom set.  If you only have some of the roms, it will not work properly.  If you don't have a complete romset you should just use the import roms option and select arcade/mame type instead.

[legolas119]

ok thanks.

for MAME, I have the full set, but only a couple of chd file: but i have created the empty folder for every chd missing file so, in this way, the Scan with Clrmame is complete. So i suppose that i can use the specific function  "import MAME fullset", am I right?

regarding the 2 mame hack, CNP MAME PLUS and PGM2 MAME (both with fullset), do you think that it is better to import them with the standard roms import? If so, which Platform I can enter? I can add additional new system, named "PGM2 MAME" and "CNP MAME PLUS" I suppose: for sure LB it will not be able to download from Emumovies themes for these 2 systems but I think that i don't have different choice...

[CDBlue]

I'm not familiar with the Mame hacks, so not sure if you can use full mame importer with those or not.  You probably can.  The only reason not to use the full mame importer is that it will assume you have every game that Mame lists as working, and will list them in your LB with the assumed path to the file.... even if it doesn't exist.  What that means is if you use the full mame importer and it thinks you have a game rom, but do not, it will still be listed in LB/BB, but when you click to play it nothing will happen because the rom doesn't really exist.

So, if the Mame hacks are exactly the same games/roms as the actual mame fullset, then I assume using the mame full romset importer will work fine. If it's just a subset of the mame fullromset, but still complete as far as the hack pack goes, I would not use the full romset importer and just use the regular rom importer and tell it you are importing Mame games... if that makes sense again haha

As for Emumovies, I believe as long as you tell LB whatever platform you call it, to scrape as Aracade, I would have thought that Emumovies would find them... if the games themselves are named the same as their Mame counterparts that is.  If they are not, then yeah Emumovies and likely even the LB games database might not find them.

Edited April 25, 2020 by CDBlue

[legolas119]

Quote

 

thanks! FBA finished! it works

I imported with normal import roms files, the PGM2 MAME: it has only 7 different games (with some clones).  I imported them:

But when I run a game, it appears all these errors (it appears a pop up for every gmae or clone, I dind't take a screenshot for everyone):

It's quite strange, i don't understand...I have configured everything and i also tried to modify the platform name in MAME (instead of PGM2 MAME like in the screenshot below), but it doesn't work:

Do you have any idea?

thank you

[neil9000]

4 minutes ago, legolas119 said:

thanks! FBA finished! it works

I imported with normal import roms files, the PGM2 MAME: it has only 7 different games (with some clones).  I imported them:

But when I run a game, it appears all these errors (it appears a pop up for every gmae or clone, I dind't take a screenshot for everyone):

It's quite strange, i don't understand...I have configured everything and i also tried to modify the platform name in MAME (instead of PGM2 MAME like in the screenshot below), but it doesn't work:

Do you have any idea?

thank you

Uncheck the "extract rom" box, you do not extract arcade games.

[legolas119]

many thanks, it works! There is only this error if i run the games from LB:

I don't have this error if I run the games directly from the PGM2MAME v0193+.exe file.  The plugin.ini is present in the emulator folder...I don't know why it appears this error.

Another little question about MAME: well, i have MAMEUI, not MAME, but i suppose that it correctly works in any case in LB, am I right?

thank you!

Edited April 26, 2020 by legolas119

[legolas119]

Hi guys, I imported all my mame fullset, with subcategories, after many hours... but I have a problem. 

During the import I named the emulator as "Arcade" and at the end of the process LB created an Additional "Arcade" section under the Parent "Arcade" (where I still have Taito Type X, Sammy Atomiswave, etc).  Every subcategory had its games. At the end I renamed the Platform as "MAME" and manually moved every subcategory under MAME, in this way:

and so the final result:

But now every subcategory is empty! I only have displayed all the 2912 mame games if i choose "MAME".  I tried to reimport it in order to see if LB fix this issue, but it doesn't! And it import again all the mame fullset with all the media!    I aboted the process, I don't want to re-import all the fullset.  

Can you help me please?

 

thank you very much

 

[CDBlue]

That's the normal bahaviour actually.  When you use the Mame importer it does indeed import the games into a platform called Arcade, which would be under the category Arcade.  It's fine if you rename the platform like you did, but now you'll have to edit each playlist (2-player games, 4-player games, etc.) and edit the platform that the playlist is searching through to find matching games and change it from Arcade to Mame.

I think maybe the confusion is that you are using Platform Category View in Launchbox.  The first Arcade you see is the Platform Category, the second Arcade is the actual Platform.  Personally, the less-hassle way is just to rename the platform back to Arcade heh.  But, like I mentioned above, you can either edit all auto-created playlists and tell it to look into the Mame platform, or rename the platform back to Arcade and all the auto-generated stuff will just work again

[legolas119]

ah ok!  I prefer to keep MAME as Platform, so I entered in each pplaylist --> Edit --> Auto populate tab --> Platform: from Arcade to MAME and everything works again   I have some quick question, just to know how to correctly manage LB and MAME for the future:

1) this is my current and final LB configuration: 

but in Manage emulator section, I have configured in this way. Is it correct? Or have I to change the platform field from Arcade to MAME in this section too, in the Associated Platform field?

 

2) I have the mame full set (only chd files are missing) and I imported it with this configuration:

So, is it normal in your opinion that LB loaded "only" 2912 different games?   And what I have to do, for example, if now I want to add some categories that i skipped during my first import, for example  Quiz games and Fruite games, but avoiding to import again ALL the romset? I don't know it my request is clear...

3) It seems that LB didn't downloaded any video HD...and it didn't download, very often, a lot of extra files for a lot of games. But for sure they are available. I entered in some games without extrafiles, Edit --> Downlaod Media, and LB detect a lot of extra files... i don't know why it didn't detected them during the import....... Is it possible to check again, only form MAME games, all the missing extrafiles in order to download them? If I have to do Edit --> Download extra files for each game, it is really hard...there are 3000 games to check...:(

thank you!

Edited May 1, 2020 by legolas119

[CDBlue]

Not sure why it would only have imported 2912 games, but if you left the skip items selected (so it skipped those items) that might be accurate.  But, I'm not sure as I don't have a complete set, I picked and chose to only install arcade games that I knew I wanted to play... about 800 ish games.

As for asking LB to attempt to redownload media files, you can.  Select your platform on the list, then click on a game.  Then select all games in that platform by pressing ctrl-a.  Once all games are selected, go to tools/download meta data an media.  Select all the items you want it to look for again (front covers, 3d covers, etc.) then on one of the last pages of the wizard select the middle option for "Yes, but do not replace any existing fields or media".  It will then re-scan all those games you have selected/installed for that platform, and look up the media at LB GamesDB and Emumovies (if you are logged in and have an account there) and if there are missing items that it can now download, it will do that.

Edited May 1, 2020 by CDBlue

[CDBlue]

It's also possible if you renamed your platform from Arcade to Mame after you imported items, it might have messed up previously downloaded items that were linked to the games while it was under the old Arcade name.

[neil9000]

That number of games is about right. I have 2842, but i also skipped mature.